Well, what advice would you give? We're going to have a lot of
listeners that get caught up in this discussion. You know they have it
at the cooler at the workplace. And, it is going to surface in regards
to the reliability of the Bible.

What advice would you give people, when it goes that direction? It
really is the question that your son, hypothetically had there. What
would you say to people that are out there. They've listened to this
discussion. They've been able to make the distinctions. They know they
can
separate the two with time, with theological issues. There is a reason
it was not included in the canon that we had. When the discussion goes
toward the reliability of what we do have. What would you say to them?

Dr. Daniel Wallace: I would
say that one of the
things that they need to wrestle with is a recognition that these
Gnostic gospels are, for the most part, non-narrative gospels. They are
not something that is memory in community. It is secret sayings given
to one person so that this one individual knows what Jesus is really
like. It
doesn't connect with history.

The gospels of The New Testament do connect with history very strongly.
You hear about people, places, things that Jesus did. It speaks about
eyewitnesses. Paul says 500 brothers and sisters at one time saw the
risen Lord, most of whom are still alive. That kind of a comment is
meant to tell us that there is some verification that we can have
historically about what is going on here.

You just don't have that in the Gnostic gospels at all and,
consequently, even though people are, as Hall said, interested in this
conspiracy theory. The fact is that it's a completely non-verifiable
kind of a gospel. My recommendation for Christians would be to go back
and look at the Gospels and recognize that this is essentially talking
about God, who had become man in human flesh. It is God invading time,
space, history in the person of Jesus Christ.

Consequently, it is meant to be taken as an historical narrative that
we can verify and test. The Gnostic gospels can not be. I would like to
see Christians start engaging in resting with that very issue and
realize that their Christianity is not something that they can just
take for granted. But, they need to start thinking about some of these
historical issues.

Mark:
Well, there is a great challenge out of that. It says know what The New
Testament gospels say. It is short and sweet.

Dr. Darrell Bock: I think it
is important to
appreciate the fact that these Gnostic materials were inherently
divisive works. What I mean by that is that there is the secret
knowledge that only SOME Christians have. It is only intended for the
group that is in "the know." That is the Gnostic part of it, if you
will.
Even the Apostles aren't in "the know." It is only these people who got
this special revelation, who were kind of cut away from the Apostles.
So, in that sense, there is that quality of the material.

There is a tonal issue that I think is important. That is a lot of
people who ask these questions, are asking, in many cases, very sincere
questions. I like to tell people to distinguish between the people who
are promoting this material.

One of the reasons this stuff is so in the public square, is that you
have some publishers who are literally publishing book after book after
book after book. It is really the same stuff. It is just repackaged
year after year after year after year. Purporting it as new, as
sensational findings, that kind of thing. It has finally penetrated the
public square.

The people who are doing the publishing know what they are doing. But,
the people who are reading the books being published are simple
absorbing information, in what is largely a vacuum of knowledge that
they don't have. So, because there is nothing else that goes in and
these works are said to come from experts, they are tending to trust
this material that they are being told about. And, so it is very
important to understand that some people are asking very sincere
questions because of what they've heard.

I think their questions need to be treated with respect, with
sincerity, while dealing with the data. Rather than our tendency
sometimes is to say, well, you're being gullible. You've just been
looped in. Well, I don't think it is always that sinister. In some
cases, it is a very honest engagement that the person has when they are
asking these questions.

Dr. Hall Harris: I agree with
that. I really don't
think this is rocket science. I really don't think it takes a Ph.D. in
Biblical Studies, or in New Testament Studies or in ancient history to
sit down and read The
Gospel of Matthew or The
Gospel of John or The
Gospel of Luke or The
Gospel of Mark and put it over against The Gospel
of Thomas or The
Gospel of Judas or The
Acts of Paul and Thecla or some
of these other works that are out there.

Because, you can read them and you can see that these are just not the
same thing. One of the key things of points of difference in almost all
the Gnostic works is that if an apostle or famous Christian figure,
like Thomas or Judas or Peter or Paul gets mentioned, they get
mentioned as an individual. "This is Judas speaking" or it's spoken to
Judas or about Judas or "This is Thomas speaking."

What you don't have is the Eleven or the Twelve, the Apostles, speaking
with a
unified voice. So this is our testimony, collectively, about who Jesus
is, like you have at the end of Johns Gospel, we get this plural "we,"
"We know that what this one said is true." You get the unified
testimony speaking.

Not that there are no differences. There are differences in perspective
and emphasis and characterization and other types of things. But the
underlying theological unity of the canonical, the New Testament
Gospels, is set over against this shotgun approach of all the Gnostic
works that go in every direction with no real unity and no unified
voice.

Dan:
It's really the difference between secret knowledge on the one hand and
memory in the community in the other.

Mark:
That's a good way to say it.

What resources are out there? People need to become familiar with this
and we get questions and phone calls all the time, and hundreds of
emails on this particular topic. What resources would you recommend?

Darrell: One resource I'd
recommend is
just pick up a copy of the Gospel
of Judas online. You can do it
through National
Geographic and read through it, it's only about
seven pages long. It doesn't take very long. It's a very representative
work of what these Gnostic gospels are like.

I now sometimes teach a Sunday school class in which I take people
though it in an hour with a lot of interest and curiosity. When they're
done I say, when the discussion about what are those others gospels,
what about them? You can say, "Well, have you ever read one of these
works all the way through?" and you can say "Yeah, I've read one of
them. I've been through the Gospel
of Judas."

So sometimes as Paul was suggesting earlier, this isn't rocket since
you don't need a Ph.D., if you have the academic qualifications of
being
able to read, then you can get through this material and you can see
for yourself what's going on. Now beyond that in terms of resources we
can engage in some selfish self-promotion here and the way I'll do it
is mention Dan's book.

[laughter]

Dan:
I'll reciprocate you!

[laughter]

Mark:
That's great!

Darrell: Dan's has done a
book called, Reinventing
Jesus. He's done it with Ed Komoszewski, who
graduated
here a several years ago, and Jim Sawyer, who did as well. It is a
survey of the various issues that come up in relationship to the
historical Jesus, written for a popular audience. It's written so that
you don't need a rocket science degree before you undertake it. You
might need a spelling degree before you can spell the names of the
authors but that's a different deal. Anyway, but it's very, very well
done in a very, very accessible book on the wide range of issues
related to Jesus.

Mark:
Yes it is. Excellent book.

Dan:
Darrell has written a book called The Missing Gospels,
which just dovetails into exactly what we're
talking about today. So that's the one to get to follow up on our
conversation here today.

Mark:
OK. So we've got a couple books. Any other resources that we want to
talk about?

Darrell: Well we can tell people to
keep
their eyes open for something. We're working right now; Dan and I are
working on a book that is tentatively titled, Dethroning Jesus.
Not
because we are trying to do so, but because we are discussing how Jesus
is being handled in the public square.

We're going to take on a look at several books that have been New York
Times Bestsellers, or have come close to the bestseller
list, related
to the public display and discussion of who Jesus is and analyze them
for what they're doing both with respect to Jesus and how the Bible is
being handled.

That book will hopefully be out this time next year. It will be a very
helpful look at many of these issues. Thomas
and Judas are going to
be discussed directly and then we're also going to discuss some of the
major books that have come out that have kind of caught the public's
attention in that last few years.

Mark: Hmm, that's great.
Guys, thank
you so much for your time. Greatly appreciate it. Again, busy time of
the year, busy time of the semester, and we thank you for sparing the
time for us. Why don't we close with a word of prayer? Hall, would you
lead us?

Hall:
Sure. Our gracious Heavenly
Father, we do thank you that we do have the opportunity to look at the
documents which have been left for us and to see in them our Lord Jesus
Christ with the testimony of the apostolic eye witnesses to affirm it's
truthfulness. We pray to this, we continue to examine these issues and
as we are confronted by the ongoing discussion in the public square
that You by Your Spirit would guide us and help us to be a good and
vibrant witness, a testimony to the truth of the gospel as contained in
these apostolic eye witnesses and to the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It is in His name that we pray. Amen.

[music]

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